Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Family members of Berta Càceres condemn the prosecutor’s office
for protecting the murderers. There is a financial connection between the director
of the prosecution and the DESA lawyers. They believe that the Honduran state knew
of the plan to assassinate indigenous leader Berta Càceres.

WE HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THAT
YOU ALL ARE PART OF THE CRIME AND THAT YOU ARE HIDING THE INVESTIGATION FROM
THE VICTIMS TO GUARANTEE IMPUNITY

Mr. President of the Republic, Juan Orlando Hernández,Mr. Attorney General of the
Republic, Oscar Chinchilla,

The family members of Berta
Cáceres, COPINH, the Grassroots Social Movement Platform of Honduras (PMSPH) and
the Articulación Popular Berta Cáceres,
with Honduran society and the International community listening, writes to you
to express and demand the following:

It has been almost a month since
the crime against Berta Cáceres and Gustavo Castro. Up until now, what we know
with certainty is that you as principal figures within the Honduran state and
government have not fulfilled your responsibility to protect Berta’s life, despite
her repeated denunciations of death threats and the fact that since 2009 the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights told you that she was facing serious
and real danger and asked for you to protect her. That means that you are
already responsible for this crime and we hope that you will one day be brought
before a court of law.

It is incumbent upon you to
explain and clarify several events that have taken place in the aftermath of the
crime against Berta and Gustavo Castro, but this should be done first to the
victims and then to others as you see fit. Among the main points that should be
clarified are:

Who came up
with the hypothesis (the only one that you have made public), that the crime
against Berta is related to a personal conflict or COPINH’s internal affairs?

What actions
have been taken with regards to the public officials who have failed or fallen
short in their obligation to protect Berta Cáceres?

What actions
have been taken against police, prosecutors, witnesses and other people who in
the first hours after the crime had already resolved the case, with egregious
falsehoods, and insisted on accusing anybody in order to ensure impunity and
reduce the National and International pressure that the crime provoked?

What actions
have been taken with regards to the manipulation of the crime scene and the
investigative process that has been publicly condemned by numerous parties,
including the victim, Gustavo Castro?

Why do you insist
on keeping Gustavo Castro in the country and violating his human rights despite
collaboration with the investigation and willingness to continue collaborating
from his home in Mexico?

Why have you
not attended to the requests made by the daughters, son, mother and other
family members of Berta?

Why don’t you
accept an independent commission directed by the IACHR, to help with the
investigation of the crime?

Why do you
refuse the active participation of the victims in the investigation via their
legal representatives?

What are you
hiding, what are those who you are protecting afraid of, why do you insist on
continuing to violate the rights of the victims?

What role does the
FBI play in the investigation of the crime? In what ways has this body
intervened?

Who are and
what is the experience of the people who are supposedly collaborating with the Honduran
authorities?

Are these FBI agents
participating in the investigation to assure impunity for DESA, for USAID, for
the U.S. Embassy in Honduras and for you as the government?

What are and
how do you explain the terms of the cooperation agreement between USAID and
DESA, the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project developer and principle suspect in
conceiving of and carrying out the crime against Berta?

How will you
explain the degree to which the investigation is independent, when the current director
of prosecutors, Arturo Duarte, who is an active participant in the
investigation, has been a partner in the law firm that represents DESA and that
made accusations towards Berta in the La Esperanza courts in 2013?

Do you think
that you can hide the fact that DESA’s lawyer, Juan Sánchez Cantillano, has
been a partner and a personal friend of the current director of prosecutors Arturo
Duarte and that this clearly compromises and lends to the manipulation of the
investigation?

Mr. President and Mr. Attorney
General,

Your attitude and the
above-mentioned concerns give us reason to believe that you not only ceased to
protect Berta, but that you may have known of the plan to assassinate her and
today are part of the plan to ensure this crime remains in impunity. That is to
say that all of the state’s actions and omissions with regards to the case of Berta
Cáceres lead us to the assertion that there is a clear will on the part of the
State to ensure that justice will not be served.

We want to reaffirm that, as victims, the family,
COPINH, the PMSPH and the Articulación
Popular Berta Cáceres, we are determined to seek and obtain truth and
justice in this crime. For that reason we urge you to resolve the requests that
the victims have already placed before you on your desks:

Accept the
intervention of an Independent Commission of international experts guided by
the IACHR to contribute actively to the investigation and clarification of the
crime against Berta and Gustavo Castro.

Respect the
rights of the victims to participate actively in the investigation already
being carried out by the Attorney General’s office

Respect and
guarantee the life and other rights of the victims, of COPINH and of the legal
team that accompanies them, in particular by ensuring that they can continue
with their legitimate defense of the human rights of indigenous peoples.

Respect the
right of victim Gustavo Castro to return to his country, from where he will
continue to contribute to the investigation as necessary

Cancel once and
for all the concession of the Gualcarque River to the DESA corporation, along
with all other illegitimate concessions affecting the Honduran territory.

We demand that
you cease your campaign against Berta’s family, COPINH and the Honduran social
movement. It is you who are responsible for the economic and human disaster that
the country is living through; it is you, along with the political and economic
class that has brought our country to the pinnacle of corruption, violence and
ineptitude.

Finally, we
reaffirm our unbreakable commitment to continue demanding and building a
Honduras where justice and dignity prevail for all victims, which is to say,
for the vast majority of Hondurans.

Monday, March 28, 2016

Berta Cáceres, our sister compañera from COPINH, our ally in the effort
to build an anti-patriarchal practice within our territorial struggles against
capitalism and racism, the one we sought out to shape and build this network
that links us as rights defenders and feminists, Berta our compita with her own unique expressions to describe danger level
with dog metaphors, the one who backed down discouragement by saying no se agüite - “don’t give in,” Berta
Cáceres the one who called upon us to re-found ourselves first, to live out a
different kind of power starting with ourselves and our organizations and
communities, a power different than the formal one we know, one that is like
she was, against the system. All of those Bertas who are really one, who are us,
now, we renew her commitment through the struggle of COPINH, sparking many
actions through the National Network of Women Defending Human Rights in Honduras,
part of the Platform for the Grassroots Social Movement of Honduras, PMSPH.

This past March 17th-18th the
streets of Tegucigalpa filled with color, chants, spirituality, drums, and cries
for justice during the “Berta Cáceres
Vive” National Indigenous Peoples Mobilization. The Garífuna, Lenca, Pech,
Tawaka, Miskito, Maya-Chortí, Tolupán peoples joined together and made their
presence felt in front of numerous government offices, only a few of which even
sent out a low-level official. We denounce that, rather than offering the
answers they owe for illegal water and mining concessions, for impositions in
violation of ILO Convention 169, they lashed out and claimed that we would be liable for the
withdrawal of financial backing by international organizations.
They refused to admit that it is their state policy of exterminating human
rights defenders, youth and poor women that truly makes this country unsafe for
those of us who live in it. That it is the fault of their own disgusting attempt to sell the
country off to the highest bidder.

The heat of this concrete city
gleamed on the faces of the peoples making the pilgrimage through its tree-less
streets, past its public officials. “The trees and breeze are gone,” said Miriam
Miranda,

a genuine leader of OFRANEH and PMSPH. “The trees and breeze are gone,
but there are people resisting here, in this other recuperated territory,” were
her provocative words at the National Autonomous University of Honduras where
the indigenous peoples entered triumphantly as the national heroes that they
are to applause, cries of emotion, memories of Berta on everyone’s minds,
present as always and as never before, her face painted on the walls, on
banners, in chants, on the bodies of the young women and men who understand
that their studies should translate into a commitment to struggle.

Through these days of
mobilization and continuing through March 20th we organized and
received a visit from a high level International Delegation with participation
of representatives from the European Parliament, from Argentina’s Plaza de Mayo mothers of the
disappeared, from the Mexican congress, from Jubilee South, Diálogo 2000, Grito de los Excluidos, environmental networks and social movements
for water and land, key figures from different struggles and opposition parties,
making up a group of people who came together with the Honduran grassroots
social movement to demand justice for Berta Cáceres. The International Delegation
was not received by most of the governmental offices with which appointments
had been requested from the Offices of the European Parliament in Brussels, the
first expression of their lack of political will to discover the truth about
the killing of our compañera.

The Delegation’s presence and its
commitment to follow up on the demand for justice are extremely important. Their
Preliminary Report clearly expresses concern about the serious lack of
accountability, the lack of an independent judicial system, the lack of respect
for international law displayed by the mega-project concessions and the lack of
legal justification to place compañero Gustavo
Castro in danger, to not treat him as a victim and witness in the case.

The National Network of Women Defending
Human Rights in Honduras denounces the extreme vulnerability of leaders and
community members of Río Blanco organized as part of COPINH, who, after the
assassination of Berta Cáceres, were dispersed by the DESA corporation’s
private security as they walked around the Agua Zarca dam facilities and were
later stopped and stripped of their bus by police as they mobilized from their
community to Tegucigalpa to participate in the National Mobilization of
Indigenous Peoples.

We call upon our people in general, upon
the grassroots social organizations, upon the peoples of the world in
solidarity with struggles for defense of indigenous territorial stewardship, to participate in the action that will take place in Río Blanco, on
the banks of the Gualcarque River, to carry out a spiritual ceremony in memory
of Berta Cáceres on the 22nd Anniversary of COPINH’s founding, Sunday
March 27th.

Let the sacred waters of the Gualcarque
River continue to run, let people build territorial autonomy, let us defend the
right to defend rights.

Monday, March 21, 2016

Tegucigalpa, March 17th, 2016. 15 days after the
assassination of Berta Cáceres Flores, the Honduran authorities have yet to
hear the voices of those of us who demand justice via an independent and
impartial investigation.

This past March 6th,
the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) issued protective measures
to safeguard our lives and well-being as Berta’s family members and members of
the Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH),
and also to guarantee us the right to defend human rights free from threats to
our safety. At the same time, the IACHR asked for an effective investigation of
the assassination of our leader, the defender of the Lenca people, the common
good and our natural resources.

In search of consensus
to implement the protective measures issued by the IACHR, we, Berta’s daughters
and son, COPINH and our legal representatives, have participated in meetings
with the Secretary of Public Safety, senior leadership of the National Civil
Police and the secretary and subsecretaries of Human Rights, Justice,
Government and Decentralization. We have presented written, concrete demands regarding
the investigation of the assassination, our physical protection and the necessary
measures to stop the ongoing violence
against the Lenca people. Thus far we have not received any formal response
from the authorities regarding our proposals.

Likewise, we asked for
meetings with the President of the Republic, Juan Orlando Hernández, and with
the Chief National Prosecutor, Oscar Fernando Chinchilla, neither of which has
even responded to us.

Regarding the investigative
process, we appeal to the Honduran government to request technical assistance
from the IACHR, forming a group of people with
experience and a recognized history of criminal investigation to provide
technical support for internal investigations and be empowered to actively
participate in all due dilligence, as well as suggest corrections and issue
condemnations, among other functions. This, we believe, would guarantee a
transparent, independent and impartial investigation that upholds the right to
truth and justice.

On their end, the
Secretary of Foreign Relations and International Cooperation, as well as the
National Public Prosecutor, put out press releases about the counsel that will
be provided by the United Nationals High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) through
its representatives in Honduras. According to the Public Prosecutor, under the
framework of said support, they would be asking for that body to “certify the
transparency and strict adherence” of the prosecutor’s office to its
constitutional and legal mandate during the investigative process. They also
ask for its “accompaniment to confirm the objectivity and impartiality of the
entire investigative process.”

In light of these
public statements by the authorities, this past March 16th Berta’s daughters
and COPINH representatives participated in a meeting with Ms. Silvia Lavagnoli,
representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR)
in Honduras and Mr. Félix Gómez, functionary of that same international body,
in order to learn about the extent of their participation in the
investigations. They expressed that their
mandate does not include carrying out a criminal investigation and that
they do not have the experience to do so and will not directly participate in
the process. They clarified that they will be observing from a human rights
perspective and from that lens will formulate recommendations to the State.

It is troubling that
the Honduran government, nonetheless, seeks to confuse the national and international community about the nature
of the UNHCR’s participation in this case. It is clear that this international
body is not competent to participate actively in an independent and impartial
investigation of Berta’s assassination but the State insists on diverting
attention in order to avoid the arrival of an international presence that could
in fact carry out that objective.

We also are aware that
the participation of authorities linked to the U.S. government (the FBI) will
be limited and, beyond that, we do not consider this a substitute for our
demands of independence and impartiality.

The Honduran
authorities are not listening to our demands for justice. Because of this, we denounce a lack of political will to
guarantee an investigation that is
transparent, independent and consistent with the highest of international
standards. It is evident
that the official discourse is detached from reality. Every day that passes we watch with pain
and impotence as justice continues to lose the battle against impunity due to
the State’s apathy.

We publiclly declare
our lack of trust in the work being done by the Attorney General and we hold
the authorities responsible for impeding our right to participate in the
investigative process.

Finally, we reiterate
our demand for #JusticeForBerta through
the participation of a group of independent, experienced, international
experts.

Olivia, Bertha, Laura and Salvador Zúniga Cáceres

Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations
of Honduras (COPINH)

With the accomaniment and legal representation of the Movimiento
Amplio por la Dignidad y la Justicia and the Center for Justice and
International Law (CEJIL)

Thursday, March 17, 2016

March 17th, 2016 marks the beginning of a massive mobilization spearheaded by indigenous and black Hondurans and accompanied by the rest of the Honduran social movements aimed at shutting down Honduras's capital city of Tegucigalpa until demands are met for justice in the assassination of Berta Cáceres. One of the primary conveners is the Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras, OFRANEH, which has led the struggle for years amongst Honduras's Garífuna population and has worked closely with Berta and COPINH for many years. The following is their statement on the purpose of the mobilization and encampment that just began. [Original en español]

Why we mobilize with Berta today

Berta is not dead. Her spirit lives in all of the rivers of Honduras and the world that are threatened by a backwards idea of development that favors the blood-thirsty political and business elite, whose antiquated vision calls the death of rivers “clean energy.” We have walked alongside Berta on many paths and the struggle to defend our territories and cultures in the face of the devastating aggression of neoliberalism has been one of our most important bonds. They want to convert the natural resources on indigenous lands into commodities to be auctioned off, without any consent from our peoples, who they see as just statistics that can be dismissed.

Honduras since the coup d’état has become a political laboratory, where the ruling elite have used hideous techniques of social containment and control to get rid of us and maintain their fierce grip on power, making use of the intentionally-provoked violence and bloodshed that is embedded in our society. The execution of Berta is a desperate act by a villainous government that has been unable to neutralize her spirit of struggle or defense of the Lenca people’s territory from the bankers and business people who traffic in death.

Berta’s struggle was rooted in the defense of the Lenca territory and culture and the empowerment of women.

The central axis of her activities revolved around the Right to Prior, Free and Informed Consultation. It is a right that has been scorned by the various government administrations, which haven’t thought twice about their attempts to give away territory and put our cultures up on the auction block.

The assassination of Berta has corroborated her own denunciations of the persecution that the “authorities” and executives of the DESA Corporation carried out against her for years. Now it seems that her death is being used as a pretext to intensify the strategy aimed at destroying COPINH and annihilating its leaders.

We Demand:

An exhaustive investigation by an independent international panel into the assassination of Berta Cáceres

The immediate withdrawal of the DESA Corporation from Lenca territory and the cancelling of all concessions for hydroelectric dams, mining projects, extraction of hydrocarbons, and Special Development Regions on indigenous lands

Demilitarization of indigenous lands

Unconditional freedom for our brother and compañero Gustavo Castro

Immediate passage of the Law for Prior, Free and Informed Consultation, created by the Indigenous People’s Observatory with direct collaboration by Berta Cáceres

The
Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras COPINH: Five
days after the assassination of Berta Cáceres.

[Español original al final]

A day before
International Women’s Day, faced with the situation of harassment,
criminalization and persecution that we are going through as an organization,
which led on March 2nd to the femicide assassination of Berta Cáceres our
general coordinator. We forcefully condemn this terrible crime that affects
indigenous society, civil organizations, the women’s struggle, the struggle for
live and above all the struggle of the Lenca people.

Thousands march at funeral for Berta Cáceres following her assassination

We invite all
national and international organizations during your International Women’s Day
mobilizations to dedicate your protests and marches to our sister Bertha
Cáceres, as a way to express solidarity with our organization and family.

We re-affirm
our position against patriarchy, imperialism, capitalism and racism which
defined the life of our sister and the organization she belongs to. We don’t
want this death to be just another statistic; it was a femicide with a
political motive because of her defense of our territory!

We thank
national and international solidarity for the support that you have shown us.
And we further call on you to carry out actions on this day to demand justice;
to emphasize that this action was a femicide carried out by the power structure
(the government, corporations and army).We invite you to bring our sister Bertha Cáceres along in spirit
with ceremonies, candles, flowers, photos or other artistic and cultural
expressions that demonstrate how strongly we remember her and continue to
struggle.

We demand
that the government sign an agreement with the Inter-American Human Rights
Commission to create an international commission of independent investigators
around the case of Berta Cáceres, due to the inability to guarantee a
transparent and credible process.

We demand the
immediate and definitive cancellation of the hydroelectric, mining and other
extractive concessions and operations that plunder the Lenca territory,
especially the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project in Río Blanco being developed
by DESA.

We demand an
end to the criminalization and harassment of COPINH members, the demilitarization
of the territory and the dissolution of the death squads.

For us the
demand for justice doesn’t mean obeying or legitimizing the Honduran judicial
system, whose chains of corruption support transnational corporations and
respond to foreign interests, not the needs of the people. Rather, we want transparent
investigative processes about Berta’s assassination, punishment for the
intellectual and material perpetrators, definitive suspension of the projects
of death, and resolution of the demands of the indigenous peoples.

With
the ancestral strength of Mota, Etempica and Lempira, her rebel spirit will
always accompany with us.

The world just lost one of the greatest freedom fighters not just in the history of Honduras but in the whole world. The voice of Berta Cácereswas, is and always will be a voice that inspires tenacity, love for the people, and hope. Berta always used her voice to amplify the voices of others, of the downtrodden, of the poor, of the Lenca people, of all indigenous and afro-descendant peoples, of women, of the LGBT community, of workers and peasants, of the exploited, of the youth, of the people in resistance, of all of us who dream of a more just world.

We share in the depths of our soul the immense pain felt by our Honduran comrades from COPINH, by Berta’s beautiful and resilient family, and by everyone who had the great privilege of meeting her at one time or another.Berta touched hearts around the world. In every corner of this planet earth, the planet that she defended with all of her energy and finally with her life itself, the example, the voice, the memory, the inspiration, the teachings, the love of Berta Cáceresare present today and always.

As La Voz de los de Abajo, an international human rights organization based in Chicago and with more than 15 years of history accompanying Honduran social movements, we hold responsible the government of Honduras, the government of the United States, and the DESA corporation and its financial backers for Berta’s murder.

The Honduran government is responsible for its unwillingness to investigate the constant death threats against Berta, for its indifference regarding the protective measures extended to Berta by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, for its participation in the campaign of defamation and character assassination carried out against Berta in the Honduran press, and for its collaboration with and support for the DESA corporation and its nefarious project of building a hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River despite the opposition of the indigenous Lenca communities. We are direct witnesses to that collaboration, having seen with our own eyes the tremendous presence of the Honduran army and its closeness and collaboration with DESA’s private security in the Río Blanco community.

The U.S. government is responsible for its continued financing of the Honduran army, for its long and criminal history of training Honduran military assassins at the School of the Americas, for its essential role in financing, defending and assuring the consolidation of the coup d’état in Honduras and the environment of repression and impunity that it ushered in.

The DESA corporation and its financial backers are undoubtedly responsible for the assassination itself. Its employees have said shamelessly and on numerous occasions that they would kill Berta for her leadership in the struggle against the environmental and cultural destruction represented by the building of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam in Río Blanco.

Berta will live not just in the hearts but in the actions of all the peoples in resistance around the world and especially in her beloved Honduras and her beloved Lenca indigenous community. If the powerful and evil think that by killing Berta they can end the struggle of the Lenca people, they are terribly mistaken. Hervoicewillmultiply. Herexamplewillmultiply. Her inspiration will multiply. She sowed thousands of seeds with her persistence, with her laughter, with her tenacity, with her hope, with her vision of a world free from patriarchy, capitalist exploitation and racism, with her dream of a liberated world, with her profound faith in the inevitable triumph of the people’s struggle. The struggle will deepen, international solidarity will deepen, the wave of indignation will deepen, the determination and dedication of the Lenca people, of the Honduran resistance and of the people of the world who accompany them will deepen.

We will be releasing information on next steps for demonstrating International solidarity very soon.

Get Email Updates - Reciba noticias por correo electrónico

News Sources / Fuentes de Noticias

Radio Progreso has radio updates (Spanish only) directly from the from the front-lines of the resistance in Honduras.

Une TV is one of the only independent national TV stations in Honduras

Rights Action has been doing good reporting and commentary as events unfold and has people on the ground monitoring the situation. They are also a reliable vehicle through which to get money to the organizations fighting for the restoration of democracy in Honduras.

Defensores en línea is the best (Spanish-only) online source for regularly updated information on the violation of human rights in Honduras.

Spanish - website of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras about the struggle of the Garifuna people and other resistance and environmental struggles.

School of the Americas Watch has good background information on the coup-plotters training at the Georgia-based School of the Americas / (also known as the School of Assasins) as well as news updates on the coup and a call to action.